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Sober Cast: An (unofficial) Alcoholics Anonymous Podcast AA

Father Joe M - The Famous Chalk Talk

Sober Cast: An (unofficial) Alcoholics Anonymous Podcast AA

AA Podcast

Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.62.2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 January 2026

⏱️ 66 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This one was a bit of a bear, it is a pretty well known speak called "The Chalk Talk" it was presented many times by Father Joe and there are many versions of it around. The hard part was finding one that didnt have truly awful sound. I spent well over an hour working on this audio and I think it is quite listenable now. Father Joe got sober in 1958 at The Guest House, it was founded and operated by Austin R, who came across a copy of the Saturday Evening Post article on Alcoholics Anonymous. As a result of the article Austin R began his journey of recovery through AA, eventually opening The Guest House. Father Joe met Austin on his first day at The Guest House, he also was introduced to Dr. Walter G, himself a recovering alcoholic. Dr. G was the first to talk about the intellect and the emotion and how drugs and alcohol cause the emotions to over-rule the intellect. Father Joe deeply admired Austin and was so impressed with Dr. G's lectures, that he saved his notes and 14 years later would use them as the source of his "Chalk Talks". The occasional clicking you hear in this speak are the source of the name, as Father Joe is writing on the chalk board. No clue where or when this particular one was recorded. Im not sure why it took me so long to post anything by Father Joe, but I have well over 50 speaks by him, email me if you are interested in hearing more from him. Support Sober Cast: https://sobercast.com/donate Email: sobercast@gmail.com Sober Cast has 3200+ episodes available, visit SoberCast.com to access all the episodes where you can easily find topics or specific speakers using tags or search. https://sobercast.com

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome to Sobercast, where we provide A.A. Speaker meetings and workshops in podcast format.

0:12.7

We're an ad-free podcast, and if you enjoy listening, please help us be self-supporting by visiting Sobercast.com, look for the donate, and drop a dollar or two into our virtual basket.

0:22.3

We hope you enjoyed the podcast. Have a great day.

0:27.7

Every single one of you in this room has very, very definite attitudes toward every phase of alcohol.

0:36.7

Toad alcoholics. toward alcoholism, even toward drinking, toward drunkenness,

0:43.3

in fact toward alcohol itself.

0:47.3

Our attitudes come from our parents, from our religious background, our cultural background,

0:52.3

but above all else from our contact with some alcoholics.

0:55.5

Every one of you knows an alcoholic. In fact, at least five of you live with one, actively drinking.

1:02.6

In fact, that there are a minimum of three active alcoholics here.

1:07.7

Face it, that's just a statistic. So many of us will die from cancer, so many of us will die from other things, so many

1:13.6

of us will die in accidents, so many of us will die of alcoholism.

1:18.6

The fact, it is the number one health problem in the United States.

1:23.6

Hugh Downs on the today show is the lone other man besides myself who has ever had the nerve publicly to say that he firmly believes, as do I,

1:31.4

but there are a minimum of 18 million alcoholics.

1:35.5

Every one of whom affects a, seriously affects a minimum of six other people.

1:41.4

Could have his industry cause it the billion-dollar hangover.

1:45.7

But let's examine some of the

1:48.1

background sources of our attitudes.

1:50.9

We are all right here

1:52.4

products of the so-called temperance

1:54.1

movement that was born in the United States

...

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